


The Fifth Dimension

by something_safe



Series: The one where Gerard is a demon [1]
Category: Bandom, Comics Industry RPF, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2013-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/something_safe/pseuds/something_safe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant smokes too much pot and accidentally summons a sardonic demon with a coffee addiction and a flair for the dramatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fifth Dimension

**Author's Note:**

> This is... something random and self indulgent I've been bashing away at very occasionally to amuse myself. Whatever. I'm not affiliated with anyone, don't sue me, disclaimer etc.

When Grant is unable to get into the right mind frame to write, he tries to procrastinate in as productive way as possible. As with any best laid plan with the word ‘try’ as its operative, sometimes it goes awry and he loses an entire night to nature documentaries and the NASA website - but for the most part, these sessions are very helpful, generally consisting of a glass of scotch, a bong, and ridiculously intense magik sessions. 

Tonight is one of the productive procrastination nights. The Scotch is triple distilled, eighteen years old and makes Grant think of woodburning fires and heather-scattered moors. The bong is- well, it’s making it harder to analyse the whisky- and the magik is… fairly magical. 

It’s not a word Grant uses lightly to describe actual events- rather, as a general rule it’s a word he uses reverently and carefully to verbally round up a string of unexplainable and gleefully controversial practises and theories therein. As it is, right now, off his head and slightly drunk and drowning in the atmosphere of four a.m. and deliciously old books, he thinks he might be experiencing actual, put-it-in-your-biography style magik.

He’s not sure how it’s gotten there, but there’s a black hole hanging in the middle of the study. It’s not a space kind, he knows that, because it’s not physically pulling anything towards it, but it is definitely doing something. Wind whistles through it, ghosting over Grant’s cheeks, chasing smoke over his shoulders, and he notes with interest that this definitely means that the wind is coming… from within the hole.

_Well, fuck me_ , he thinks eloquently, uncrossing his legs where he’s been meditating on the floor, staying well within the rune-encrypted circle on the wooden floorboards even as he leans to peer into the portal. He’s not even sure how it happened. One minute he was hallucinating quite vividly about beating hearts and teeth and fear blooming into his lungs like tar, and the next it was pouring out of him, creeping along the floor, whirling into corporeality with a motion of water down a sinkhole. 

Tar. That’s a thing that sticks with him; something he knows he’s experienced before, in a muggy, half remembered sense. As he ponders it, the hole pulses unexpectedly where it spins, its circumference shuddering as it starts to grow. Grant stands, watching rapt with fascination, as it starts to yawn open, roiling and sputtering as if—as if about to projectile vomit, actually. 

He’s only just managed to step back when the hole literally does vomit, a sticky river of black ooze that spills out onto the floor in a great, viscous tidal wave, sluicing around the perimeter of Grant’s circle as if around a cylinder of glass. Fascinated rather than horrified, Grant just watches as a figure starts to emerge from the slime, stretching up gracefully into a shape that is vaguely humanoid. The scene before him is flickering, vibrating slightly, and Grant gets the distinct impression that if he were to blink it would shatter from its albeit loosely contained image; that the creature encased in oily darkness would explode from its hold like a flood of lava from beneath the ocean. 

The tar abruptly starts to drip from the theoretical head of the being in front of him, oozing down in rivulets that leave behind the crown of a dark head of hair, the start of a pale forehead and two long, curved horns. Transfixed, Grant watches a boy grow out of the muck, shucking it like skin, writhing to be free. He falls to his knees, starting to spit and retch at the oil on his clawed hands, flicking it off with growing impatience. All the while, Grant can only watch with a growing sense of foreboding, trying to remember every detail, the smell of burning, the slowly dissipating whistle of the wind, and this boy, writhing in wet fury like an animal caught in an oil spill. 

And that’s when the wings and thin, reptilian tail unfold, and Grant makes a noise of intense intrigue. 

The boy is growling now, wings flapping abortively, leathery and bat-like in essence, though much longer in proportion, with two almost thumb-like claws at the tip of each, the bend like an elbow. Despite having arms, it’s the forked tail which he uses to grab at Grant with, catching him by the pantleg, and shit if Grant actually thought his stupid circle would work in protecting him against _an actual creature_ instead of just some otherworldly slime. 

Eyes widening in something that might be alarm were he more sober, Grant goes to speak when he’s interrupted by the boy, who looks up at him with wide black eyes, and speaks breathlessly.

“Fuck! Don’t just stand there you mad old shit! Get me a fucking towel!”

Horrified by the brutal shattering of artistic tension, Grant huffs, eyes widening.

“I didn’t know y’d want one! I didn’t even know what you fucken’ were!” he replies, defensive. “Thought y’were the fuckin’ second coming of Satan or some shite like that-!”

“Ha—second—fuck, I’m in need of a towel, is what I am,” the boy spits, and fuck, he’s American, okay, “And a fucking drink wouldn’t go amiss- this slime tastes like imp shit.”

Imp shit. Without thinking on it too hard, Grant steps over the pool of tar around his circle (away from the grip of that flicking, apparently prehensile tail) and goes to retrieve a towel, coming back with it and offering it to the boy, who uses it to wipe the last traces of gunk from his mouth, ears and horns, handing it back to him when he’s clean enough to accept a glass of Scotch and down it in one, hissing at the taste. Standing, wings fluttering experimentally, the boy steps haltingly out of the tar, feet bare and filthy, and straightens again to examine the room. Watching as his wings fold neatly against his back, Grant takes out his phone and uses it to take a picture, waiting for the explosion of anger that could well accompany it. 

Instead, the boy turns, tilting his head and reaching to take the phone off Grant, examining it. 

“S’this?”

“It’s a phone…” Grant answers, going to pour out two more glasses of whisky. “Cellular, y’know.”

“Boy, they’ve come a long way.” The boy, or creature, or whatever he is, comes over to Grant’s desk, eyes roving over the texts there. He makes a noise, glancing back around the room. “Sorry about the mess, uh. It’ll disappear in a few hours.”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, that’s okay. Here.” Choosing to hand him another glass rather than bother to try compute that, Grant smiles a bit, taking this stranger’s studying as an opportunity to absorb his appearance. “That’s. Where’re you from-?” 

Those pale eyes fix on him, the boy tilting his head. Grant doesn’t know why he’s a boy, just knows he looks about the age to be called ‘lad’ and ‘son’, or would were it not for the devil features. While he’s considering his answer, the boy is examining Grant’s phone still, touching at various images on the screen, lips twitching in amusement.

“Ah, I can’t tell you the actual name, it’s against the rules. Safe t’say I’m from another plain.”

“Plain?” Grant repeats, “as in dimension?”

“As in dimension, aye,” the boy says, impersonating him. “The fifth, to be precise.”

“How many are there-?”

“Lots. What’s this button do?”

“That’s t’take a picture. What number is this one?”

“Picture?”

“No, no- plain.”

The boy stops, thinking, and glances around again. Now that he’s up close, he doesn’t seem all that menacing, just wearing a torn up vest and plain black pants, but Grant can’t help but notice his tail, trailing over things on the desk beside them, picking things up with an almost sentient curiosity. His head tilts again, the light of Grant’s cellphone glinting off his horns. 

“The seventh,” he says decisively, but from the way he grins, it could well be a lie. Grant decides to go for something easier.

“Oh, I see. All right. Well, nice t’meet you. I’m Grant.” He holds out his hand, and the boy looks at it with interest, taking it in his own not to shake but to examine the blunt ends of Grant’s fingers compared with his own sharp, dark ones. 

“Gerard,” he says. Grant blinks at him, underwhelmed, and he glances up, expression sharp. “Not exotic enough for you?”

“No, no, it’s not that…” Grant shoots him a sidelong glance, raising his eyebrows. Touchy. “I was just expecting, y’know. Helblindi or something.” 

“Are you saying I’m anti-fucking-climactic?”

“Well, it’s just not a very unusual name considering you look like something from a Greek Frieze, is all.”

“Well I’m not fucking Greek, am I? How would you feel if I had looked at you when I got here and went, ‘well, not quite what I was expecting, Merlin’, huh?”

Grant tries to look sorry but it’s hard. He’s getting a cultural stereotyping lecture from a devil. 

“I’d be very sad,” he says solemnly, and snorts when Gerard bares his teeth.

“Fuck you. At least I’ve got hair.”

“And horns.”

“What did you fucking expect, a tiara?”

Grant isn’t sure what he expected. He’s fairly sure he expected aliens, or at a push, Jesus. He didn’t expect black holes and tiny, fey-faced winged boys, that’s for sure. Like a miniature Hellboy, black and white. 

“Well, tell y’the truth, I wasn’t really expecting much,” he admits, watching Gerard start to search through the books on his shelf. Gerard shoots him a self-congratulatory look.

“Well you lucked out, man. I’m one of the best.”

Grant pauses; tries not to roll his eyes at the typicality of the conversation- on his part, at least- before he forces out: “Best what?”

“Djinn, of course,” Gerard says, like he’s stupid. “You summoned me. I’m here to do your evil bidding or whatever.”

Allowing for weed and Scotch makes it impossible to be certain, but Grant feels fairly sure that ‘summoning a djinn’ was not what he thought he was doing when he was leafing through his ridiculous book of incantations, bought mostly to amuse himself and for ideas from a tiny, tucked away store in Edinburgh. He sucks on his teeth for a moment, processing as the winged, horned, tailed, clawed kid from a black hole picks up his Eisner from the book shelf and bites it experimentally. 

“My evil bidding?” he repeats, just to be clear, and Gerard flicks his chin to bore into him with his sharp eyes, a bit of dark hair flicking up onto a horn and getting caught there. He nods. 

“Any kind of bidding you want,” he adds, mouth tugging up in a crooked smile. He has tiny, sharp-looking teeth that Grant sort of wants to examine. He smiles back, resolution solidifying in his mind. This is so a thing he can use. This is so biography material. 

“Cool,” he says, because he can. Gerard just smiles wider. “Is it like, a three wishes thing?”

Gerard’s smile fades and he rolls his eyes with an unnecessary amount of drama, gesturing at his head where the dark, ridged horns point at the ceiling. 

“I’m a _demon_ , not a _genie_ ,” he groans, “I’m not about to say you’re only allowed three, am I? Human ethos surrounding djinn is so fucked up. Genies aren’t a thing.”

“Well that sounds positively sketchy, even in its generosity,” Grant shakes his head, looking at the photo on his phone that Gerard just took of him. He looks totally off his head. “Is it gonna be like tha’ awful Liz Hurley film where everything goes as wrong as it can?”

The tail flicks out, lashing a coffee cup off Grant’s desk. Gerard holds one clawed finger up to snatch Grant’s attention back, meeting his gaze, voice low.

“I’m just going to explain this to you one more time, then no more dumb questions, okay?”

Feeling amusement start in his gut at his seriousness, Grant nods; tries to stifle a grin. He’s too baked for this. Gerard continues.

“You summoned me, dude. You _summoned_ me. You used a binding summoning, see this?” he stabs pointedly at a paper on Grant’s desk, the verse Grant repeated while he was meditating. “This is like a contract. It says ‘Congratulations! You just bagged yourself a servant for all of eternity! He has to sit by your grave even after you’ve died! Have fun!’, do you get that?”

Grant doesn’t. He doesn’t want to say though, lest his new demon ( _What the flyin’ fuck does tha’ even mean anyway?_ ) have an even bigger hissy fit. Sucking at his lower lip in thought, he pours himself another glass of Scotch and then turns his gaze back to Gerard, thinking. Watching him with yellow eyes, Gerard’s tail flicks, rhythmic and hypnotic. 

“I think I need tae sleep on this,” Grant says, honestly, and Gerard flails in frustration.

“Sleep on it? There’s no returns policy, _Master_ ,” he hisses, moving towards Grant as if to intimidate him. He’s about as scary as a raccoon in a Viking helmet. “A demon is for life, not just for Christmas.”

“Well, I will take that into account while I sleep on it,” Grant says, and he helps himself to one more measure of Scotch. To help him sleep, he promises. Gerard makes an appropriately evil snake-type noise of disappointment, watching in horror as Grant heads for the study door.

“What am I meant to do while you sleep on it?”

“Whatever you want, Gerard, just don’t hurt any of the cats.”

“What if I want to?”

“I _order_ you not to hurt any of the cats.”

Gerard grins, sharp and white again.

“Don’t need to sleep on it that much, huh?” he snarks, and Grant closes the study door, rubbing his temples and walking away from what he is now quite certain is a hallucination. It has to be. This is ridiculous, even for him.

Picking up a cat, he makes his way to his bedroom, which he locks, then gets into bed and turns the light off. His logic tells him that the quicker he goes to sleep, the quicker he wakes up sober, and with that idea planted firmly in mind, he texts his wife good night and then pulls the covers over his head. 

In the morning, when he heads to the study with sleep-crusted eyes and a cup of coffee clenched in one hand, he opens the door and almost drops his cup when he sees the winged boy stretched out on his belly on the desk, nose in a book. He stares at him for a long moment, transfixed by the morning sun shining through Gerard’s leathery wings, picking out crimson veins that run like rivers over the peach-skin webbing there. 

Gerard looks up, and there’s a cat curled up under his chest, in the warmth of his arms. 

“I don’t know why you look so surprised that I’m still here…” he says archly, scritching between the cat’s ears with his clawed fingers. Grant looks down at his coffee and briefly considers throwing it down himself to see if then he wakes up for real. 

“Me neither,” he admits, hazily, “Y’think I’d have learnt by now that weird shite does happen and there’s no need to poke the occult with a stick.”

“Oh don’t be that way,” Gerard drawls, sliding off the desk, letting the cat clamber up onto his shoulder as he makes his way to Grant, pressing his nose over the edge of his mug to sniff at the contents with intrigue, “I’m here to make your life better. This smells good- can I have this-?”

Grant lets him take the mug wordlessly, staring out of the window for a long time. He glances at Gerard, then murmurs.

“So you’re here to do my bidding? No catches? No time span?”

“Yup, that’s the size of it.”

“Can you do something for me now, to prove it?”

Gerard bows his head once, raising the coffee to his lips to sip and watching Grant expectantly. Bristling, Grant struggles to think of something suitably substantial to prove that this isn’t a dream. Finally, he gestures a bit, pointing to the lamp on his desk.

“Can you—uh- make that lightbulb work?”

Gerard balks at him.


End file.
